Category Archives: rural

Judy Goodman has always been a trailblazer of sorts—you have to be, working as a research biologist, artist, yurt builder and chocolatier in the mountainous interiors of the Pacific Northwest, as she has. That rugged lifestyle—and many hours spent hiking, camping and skiing with her family— led to her latest venture: BGood Bars, which makes […]

The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) unveiled its latest group of Local Economy Fellows on Tuesday. The 25 new Fellows—representing BALLE’s fifth such cohort—are a diverse range of leaders tackling challenges in rural, indigenous, and second-tier urban communities across 16 American states and three Canadian provinces. The fellowships are awarded to systems entrepreneurs […]

Laramie, Wyoming may not be the first place you would look for an innovative experiment in digital age economic revitalization. And at first glance, Diane Wolverton and Kim Vincent might not fit the image of change agents. But the pair has been quietly building a crowdfunding ecosystem across rural America that is helping communities lift […]

Starting a business in a small town or rural place isn’t easy. Financing can be a major roadblock. In some small towns, local banks may not support unproven business owners. In other towns, the formerly-local banks are now owned by out-of-town conglomerates with far-away loan approval committees. In still other rural places, there simply aren’t […]

It’s blowing a gale out here in Union County. The sky is nearly black with clouds hanging low over the mountains. The sweeping vista in front of me offers up occasional dots of farmhouses with their clusters of...

Nestled on the Southern Oregon coast, where the Coos River enters the Pacific, the rural communities of Coos Bay and North Bend are known locally as “the Bay Area.” In contrast to the more famous Bay Area a few hundred miles to the south, Coos Bay is not a hotbed of tech startups and Mark […]